The True Macbeth 



<A Critical Essay 



By HOMER B. SPRAGUE, A.M., Ph.D. 




Silver, Burdett & Company 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



^r-'^^'' r^*"*^' 



Skak^&p^Ti 



Copyright, igog, by 
Silver, Burdett & Company 



r~ cr> /\ 

Ci.A ' ^-^ 
AUa 18 1909 



HOW TO STUDY ENGLISH LITERATURE. 237 

Last he imagines how the horrible wickedness of the crime 
will be enhanced in men's estimation by the acknowledged 
virtues of the good king. — Merit of the passage ? Defects ? 
Similar passages ? 
4. Criticisms §a^ opinions of the class are called for. 

The foregoing crude treatment of this passage, supplemented by 
the judicious comments of the teacher, may illustrate what we believe 
to be one of the best possible exercises for giving fullness and accu- 
racy in; language and for cultivating the taste. The rendering of a 
celebrated passage into exactly equivalent words furnishes, to a 
large extent, the same excellent discipline that is afforded by trans- 
lating from a classical author. It will be found, upon inspection, 
that our notes are prepared with a view to such exercises. Some- 
times interpretations that are very nearly equivalent are given, in 
order that a nicety of taste and a felicity of expression may be de- 
veloped in choosing among them. Care must be taken, however, 
not to push these or any other class exercises so far into detail as to 
render them uninteresting, or to withdraw attention from the great 
features of the play. It must ever be borne in mind that it is of vital 
importance to make the student enjoy this study. 



DIAGRAM FOR THE ANALYSIS 



OF ANY PLAY OF SHAKESPEARE, SHOWING THE 
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE. 




Fill out the Diagram by writing very briefly : 

(1) On the outside of the circle, a statement of the Atmosphere or 
Environment of the play. 

(2) Under the triangle, the fundamental Motive or Motives of the 
principal character or characters. 

(3) Over the apex of the triangle, the Hinge or Turning Point, 
usually in the third Act. 

(4) Extending down from the apex to the base, the Central Truth, 
Moral, or Lesson. 

(5) Inside the proper spaces, the Function (office or use) of each 
Act, showing Introduction, Rising Action, Crisis, Descending Action, 
and Catastrophe or Happy Issue. Any scene may be similarly 
treated. 

238 



THE TEUE MACBETH. 



In a lecture delivered on the twentieth of November, 1895, 
Sir Henry Irving gave the following characterization of Mac- 
beth 'i 

Shakespeare has in his text given Macbeth as one of the most bloody- 
minded, liypocritical villains in his long gallery of portraits ... a hypo- 
crite, murderer, traitor, regicide; . . . a villain cold-blooded, remorseless, 
with a true villain's nerve and callousness when braced to evil work, . . 
the mere appreciation of his own wickedness giving irony to his grim 
humor and zest to his crime ; . . . having even before the opening of the 
play a purpose of murdering Duncan, ... a wish and intent to murder, 
... a resolution that never really slackened, ... a resolution as grimly 
fixed as steel and a heart as cold as ice. 

There is ample justification for formino; a totally different 
estimate of Macbeth; for conceiving of him as at first just, 
high-souled, ingenuous, conscientious, so impressionable, so full 
of delic2.to sensibility that in after years he could truthfully 
say — 

The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair 
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir 
As life were in 't. . . . Act V, sc. v. 

dreamy and over-sensitive, to the extent of hallucination and 
frenzy; so sympathetically complaisant as by and by to lose 
all toughness of moral fibre; a soldier splendidly brave, deserv- 
ing the proud name "Bellona's Bridegroom''; yet an uxorious 
husband, so bewildered under the glamour of conjugal love and 
swayed from foundation principles by "circumstances beyond 
his control" (i.e., his wife!) that he could come to regird 
cowardly assassination as a *■ manly" act, a "great ciuell,'' a 
gallant "feat"! 

Perhaps no man ever looked deeper into Scottish story and 
tradition than Sir Walter Scott. In his History of Scotland he 
asserts that Macbeth was once "a firm, just, and equitable 
prince"; but that "apprehensions of danger . . . seem in 
process of time to have soured his temper and rendered him 
formidable to his nobility." 

239 



240 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

From the historical setting which for the most part Sir Henry 

Irv'ing ignored, it ai)pears probable that in the bestowment of 
the crown a principle of alternation had obtained. 

Kenneth (i.e., the handsome) Macalpine, having gained a 
decisive victory over the Picts in the year 842, became the 
founJer of the Scottish dynasty with the title, Kenneth the 
First. Upon his death in 859 he left no son of military age. 
It being requisite that the king should be able to preside in 
council and lead in battle, Kenneth's brother,- Donald was 
selected for the throne. A precedent was thus set whereby, 
says Sir Walter Scott, "the brother of a deceased monarch 
should be called to the crown in preference to the son; in order, 
it may be supposed, to escape the inconvenience of frequent 
minorities. " On the death of Donald the sceptre reverted to 
his brother's family, and Constantine, a son of Kenneth, suc- 
ceeded. The alternation so begun seems to have become an 
established usage and to have continued for about a century 
and a half. We may even call it a part of the unwritten con- 
stitution of Scotland in those ages that the royal authority 
should be exercised first by a member of one of the two leading 
families and then by a member of the other. For convenience 
we might designate these collateral houses as the Malcolm 
branch and the Macbeth branch of the original Macalpine 
stirps. 

But an end at length came to the peaceful transfer of the 
sceptre. Kenneth III of the Macbeth branch was assassinated. 
Constantine IV snatched the crown. In 995 he in turn was 
slain, and one of the Macbeth branch succeeded as Kenneth IV. 
Eight years later he too lost his life at the hands of an ambi- 
tious representative of the opposite party, ]\Ialcolm, who thus 
became Malcolm II. Malcolm's reign was long, from 1003 to 
1033. He had no sons. His elder daughter, Beatrice, married 
Abbaneth Crinen, an adherent of the Malcolm branch, and 
became the mother of our Duncan of the play. His younger 
daughter, Doada, married Sinel, an adherent of the other 
branch, and became the mother of our Macbeth. 

King Kenneth IV, whom IMalcolm slew, was grandfather 
of Gruach. According to the old usage her brother should in 
due time have ascended the throne. But IMalcolm had ])rovided 
against this. He seems to have flouted the principle of alterna- 
tion and determined to shut out the Macbeths altogether. To 
make room for his favorite, Duncan, he slew Gruach 's brother. 
There still remained a worthy representative of the Macbeth 
side, Macbeth himself, who, now that Gruach's brother was out 
of the way, ought to have been the next king. But whether by 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 241 

force or fraud or accident, Macbeth was passed by, and Duncan 
became king wrongfully. It seems possible that Macbeth, per- 
haps dwelling in the cloudland of dreams — for Irving insisted, 
and rightly too, we think, that he was "the greatest poet that 
Shakespeare has ever drawn" — was at that time too mild or 
pious or unselfish or magnanimous to engage in a fierce scramble 
or bloody fight or sordid intrigue for the golden bauble, and that 
he continued such for six or seven years; so that one who knew 
him best described him truthfully when she said — 

I do fear thy nature ; 
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; 
Art not without ambition, but without 
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, 
That wouldst thou holily; . . . Act I, sc. v. 

The historic outline we have thus briefly drawn enables us 
to understand why Sir Walter Scott emphatically declares, 
"In very truth the claim of Macbeth to the throne, according to 
the rule of Scottish succession, was better than that of Duncan." 

Besides their exclusion from participation in kingly rule, 
other wrongs had been perpetrated against the Macbeths by 
Malcolm or his gang of followers. In 1020 Macbeth's father 
had been killed by Malcolm. Gruach especially had cause for 
hatred. Not only had her grandfather, Kenneth IV, and her 
brother, the rightful heir to royalty, been slain, but her first 
husband, Gilcomgain, had been shut up in his castle by Malcolm, 
the castle had been fired, Gilcomgain and fifty of his adher- 
ents had perished in the flames, and she herself with her infant 
son had but narrowly escaped from the burning pile. She fled 
to Macbeth. He received her kindly and married her. She is 
our Lady Macbeth. 

Of course Macbeth and his wife knew that they were origi- 
nally entitled to the sovereignty. They must all along have 
felt keenly the injustice done them. What more natural than 
that they should hope for redress; that this poetic husband 
should imbibe something of his wife's strenuous spirit, her 
inordinate desire for power, rank, wealth, or fame? The his- 
torian (Holinshed, Vol. II, Hist. Scot.) tells us, "Specially 
his wife lay sore upon him ... as she that was very ambitious, 
brenning [burning] in unquenchable desire to bear the name 
of queen. " What more natural than that now and then in 
moments of exasperation, brooding over their wrongs and 
perhaps smarting anew from some real or fancied humiliation at 
the hands of the hostile family, under her fiery appeals they 
should resolve, vow, swear even, that they would yet have 



242 TUE TRUE MACBETH. 

their rig;hts and that she should yet bear the royal name for 
which she lon<i;ed? We fancy that by such promises he an- 
swered her importunities and allayed her impatience, always 
postponing immediate action on the ground that 

Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, 

but assuring her that he would keep the matter in mind, saying — 
We will speak further. . . . Act I, sc. v. 

It will perhaps be argued that as Shakespeare for dramatic 
reasons has omitted all mention of antecedent facts, we need 
take no note of them ; that it matters not what Macbeth, Lady 
Macbeth, Duncan, and the rest had done or had been before 
the opening scene. Why not, then, ignore that history alto- 
gether and confine ourselves to the text? Why assume an 
hypothesis not clearly advanced by the poet? 

As a general answer to all such inquiries, we might say that 
by taking cognizance of prior surroundings, knowing the mate- 
rials out of which a drama is built, and noting the silent devia- 
tions from historic verity or accepted tradition, we can better 
understand the dramatist's purposes and plan. 

More than this. If we assume that in this composition he 
took for granted and kept in view some things of importance 
not specified in the text, we shall find it easy to elucidate c(t- 
tain dark sayings. Not to anticipate other and more striking 
illustrations of this point, does not our assumption of former 
guileless innocence on the part of IMacbeth explain as nothing 
else can his inability to control the expression of his counte- 
nance? Does it not make more natural the utterance of strongly 
remorseful words like these — 

For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind; 

For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd; 

Put rancors in the vessel of my peace 

Only for them; and mine eternal jewel 

Given to the common enemy of man. . . . Act III, sc. i. 

Is it not at least suggestive of the ground of Macbeth 's former 
goofl repute and the love Macduff once bore him? 

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, 
Was once thought honest: you have lov'd him well; . . Act IV, sc. iii. 

Is not the influence of early religious training manifest in his 
many Scriptural allusions? Was not a reminiscence of the 
meditations of his better days and of his once keen spiritual 
discernment what led him in after years, when far gone in 
crime, to single out, though with an ironical sneer, a central 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 243 

thought in the Lord's Prayer — the loftiest reach of Christian 
ethics — when he asked the two murderers, whose hatred of 
Banquo he would intensify — 

Are you so gospcll'd 
To pray for this good man and for his issue, 
Whose heavy hanrl hath bow'd you to tiie grave 
And beggar 'd yours for ever? . . . Act 111, so. i. 

Seven years have at length elapsed since Duncan began to 
reign in 1033. How to get rid of him has been a problem. 
He is old; his two sons are mere boys; he may fall in battle; 
he may die a natural death, as Scottish kings have sometimes 
done ; he may, as one of them, Constantine III, did fifty years 
before, quit the throne and retire into a cloister; nay, for he is 
an easy, slothful, good-natured man, he may abdicate in favor 
of his "worthiest cousin" Macbeth, or take other steps to secure 
his succession. 

Right here it will be strongly objected that Shakespeare 
says little or nothing of apparent justifications or plausible 
excuses for the murder of Duncan. He must have known of 
them. He had his Holinshed open before him, and was three 
hundred years nearer these events than we. Why, then, does 
he not bring out the extenuating circumstances, or at least 
intimate some of Macbcth's claims to the royal purple? 

Good reasons for this silence might be assigned. He may 
wish "to show Virtue her own features, Scorn her own image," 
and so teach great lessons; as, that crime begets crime; that 
ambition "overleaps itself"; that although a malefactor may 
be willing to risk punishment in "the life to come," believing 
God will forgive it soon, 

yet there is a logic of events, "a Power at the centre of the 
universe that makes for righteousness," so that very often 
the guilty are punished here. 

But here, upon this bank and school of time . . . 
We still have judgment here; that we but teach 
Bloody instructions, which being taught return 
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice 
Commends the ingredience of our poison 'd chalice* 
To our own lips. . . . Act I, sc. vii. 

Especially, perhaps, would he teach the danger in listening 
4 to evil suggestions, for Shakespeare is the prince of moralists — 

Oftentimes, to win us to our hnrmi. 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths, 
Win us with honest trifles, to betray 's 
In deepest consequence. . . . Act I, sc. iii. 

* Note that a "chalice" is the consecrated cup userl in the Holy Communion. 



244 THE TRUE MAC BETH. 

Again, Shakespeare's omission of all circumstances that 
might i)aHiate regicide was the dictate of supreme prudence. It 
was dangerous in those days to suggest the shghtest appearance 
of justification or even apology for violence against a mon- 
arch, or for blows directly or indirectly struck at royal authority. 
Within six years* five gentlemen had been hanged, drawn, 
and quartered for high treason, the overt act alleged in the 
indictment being the performance f of "A play of the Dei)osing 
and Killing of King Richard II." "Know ye n(5't," exclaimed 
Elizabeth in the following August, "that / am Richard the 
Second?" Shakespeare was not a fool. 

Furthermore, in order to please the thick-skulled Vanity 
who then sat on the throne of England, and who among his 
first acts had appointed Shakespeare's company "His Majesty's 
Players" (one of the best things James Stuart ever did), it was 
politic in Shakespeare to remove a dark stain from the royal 
escutcheon and to leave in deep shadow all motives of I\Tacbeth 
and his wife for engaging in hostile acts against Duncan. 
Accordingly, disregarding history and tradition, which show 
that Banquo shared in the guilt of the murder and that 
Macbeth had grounds of complaint, Shakespeare tickles the 
"Scottish Solomon" by whitewashing Banquo, the reputed 
ancestor of James and of all the Stuart kings, and, by con- 
trast, blackening Macbeth, suppressing or minimizing all exten- 
uating facts in his favor. Shakespeare had a keen eye to 
business. 

A word as to the possible genesis of Sir Henry Irving's view^ 
of Macbeth. Sir Henry knew himself no berserker, but a 
refined gentleman. Neither in voice nor gesture, bulk nor 
brawn, was he equipped for grand, lofty utterance combined 
with robust, smiting, prolonged energy. He was often intense, 
but his intensity was of the intellect rather than the emotions. 
His voice, strong on consonants, feeble in vowels, lacked reso- 
nance and compass; his countenance, always interesting and 
often fascinating, was rarely kingly, never godlike; in his poses 
he was versatile, picturesque, dignified, but seldom statuesque 
and majestic. He knew himself a master artist, but that his 
art was Tennysonian rather than Miltonic, the art of Wendell 
Holmes rather than that of Byron, of Tom Moore rather than 
Isaiah, Addison rather than Carlyle, Joseph Jefferson than 
Tomasso Salvini. As Dr. Primrose, Louis XI, Charles I, 
Dubosc, and Mathias, he was perfect; not quite so as Hamlet, 

* March 18, 1601. Sirs Christopher Blount, Charles Davers, John Davis, 
Gilly Merrick, and Henry Cuffe. 

t Acted at the Globe, Feb. 2, 1601. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 245 

less so as Shylock, least of all as Lear. To illustrate with 
grandiose or passionate utterance a frenzied Macbeth, he would 
have felt himself helpless. 

ISo, using what Dr. Horace Bushnell would term a "sufficient 
interpretation," he evolved or built from the text, consciously 
or unconsciously, a character he could well personate, an Irving- 
ized Macbeth — a singular creation — all intellect, no soul; 
with thrilling imagery, but no touch of heartfelt sympathy; 
fancy so vivid that he could make tears trickle down his cheeks, 
yet a spirit so Mephistophelian that he could chuckle over it 
as but sham ; superstitious, but without religious conviction ; 
poetic with his brain, but sly, snaky, introverted, hypocritical, 
intensely selfish; a devil turned poet, who, for mere pastime, 
"loves to paint himself and his deeds in the blackest pigments," 
finds grim satisfaction in "cultivating assiduously a keen sense 
of the horror of his crimes" [we use Irving's own language], 
loving to "bring to the exercise of his wickedness the conscious 
deliberation of an intellectual voluptuary," "so that action 
and reaction of poetic thought might send emotional waves 
through the brain while the resolution was as grimly fixed as 
steel and the heart as cold as ice," "playing with his conscience 
as a cat does with a mouse," if that may be called conscience 
which clearly distinguishes between right and wrong but feels 
no impulse to do the one or shun the other, and is incapable of 
genuine compunction. 

Certainly Sir Henry constructed an extraordinary being, a 
masterpiece of ingenious synthesis; and on the stage he depicted 
it with much skill; but can it be that this combination of con- 
tradictory qualities — heroic in battle, glorious in poetry, yet 
false, cunning, cowardly, cold-blooded, stony-hearted, unscru- 
pulous, hypocritical — is the Macbeth of Shakespeare? 

Sir Henry rang the changes on Macbeth's poetic imagination 
divorced from tender sensibility. "He was a poet with his 
brain," said Sir Henry, "the greatest poet that Shakespeare 
has ever drawn, and a villain with his heart. " The statement 
is more than a paradox. Poets and villains, thank God, have 
absolutely nothing in common. 

The play opens with a witch scene, twelve short lines. Amid 
thunder and lightning, the din of battle, air thick with fog and 
filthy with smoke of gunpowder, the three weird sisters indicate 
the weather, the time, place, and person, for their next meet- 
ing; also two of their familiar spirits, their own character, and 
their airy flights. 

Why this witch scene? "To strike the keynote," says 
Coleridge. Supernatural powers of evil are to pervade the 



24 G THE TR UE MA CBE TH. 

environment and to be felt by Macbeth every moment. The 
sorcery and incantations 

Shall raise such artificial sprites 

As by the streng;th of their illusion 

Shall draw him on to his confusion. . . . Act III, sc. v. 

But if Irvino; was correct in his conception — that is, if ]\Tac- 
beth's character is the same from first to last — then there is 
no need of any influx of the supernatural, no ^aison d'etre of 
witches, ghosts, or apparitions. 

Many critics, however, insist with Gervinus that the supposed 
supernatural phenomena are merely subjective, the figments 
of an overwrought brain, like the air-drawn dagger of which 
Macbeth concludes — 

There's no such thing: 
It is the bloody business which informs 
Thus to mine eyes. . . . Act II, sc. i. 

You will recall Lowell's lines in the Ghost-Seer — 

Ye, who, passing graves by night, 

Glance not to the left or right 

Lest a spirit should arise 

Cold and white to meet your eyes. 

Some weak phantom which your doubt 

Shapes upon the dark without 

From the dark within. 

Certainly we may thus account for the air-drawn dagger and 
for Banquo's ghost; possibly for the apparitions in the cal- 
dron scene; but no theory of subjectivity can quite explain 
away the weird sisters. They are as distinctly visible and 
audible to the matter-of-fact Banquo as to the vision-haunted 
Macbeth. 

In the second scene ^facbeth's brilliant heroism is set forth. 
In two savagely-fought battles he is bravest of the brave. Sir 
Henry seemed to forget that this heroism strongly militates 
against his theory. A famous warrior once said, "The worse 
the man, the better the soldier. " In a bad cause it may be 
true. But in a just cause, in a war not of ''forcible annexa- 
tion" or "criminal aggression," but of direst necessity and 
strictest self-defence — the only war that is ever excusable — 
where the commander in the field will make no "howling wil- 
derness," nor wink at torture, nor permit unkindness towards 
women, children, non-combatants, or prisoners, in such a war 

The bravest are the tenderest, 
The loving are the daring. 



THE TRUE MACBETB. 247 

Says the blameless knight Sir Galahad — 

Mv good blade cleaves the casques of men; 

'My tough lance thrusteth sure ; 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 

-I selected men," said Cromwell, 'Svho made^some conscience of 
whnt thev did and they were never beaten. , , , i 

Sir Henry conceded to Macbeth a full share of what he termed 
-this great manly quality," bravery in battle; but he a ter- 
wards styled it nhe physical heroism of those born to kill. 
Surely it was at first something better than that. 

A priori, then, from Macbeth's magmficent conduct in face 
of the greatest dangers we have a right to infer his original high 

"^Agaiirnotice that if this embodiment of "Justice with valor 
armed " had been at heart an unscrupulous hypocrite and traitor, 
as Sir Henry insisted that he was, he could at the outset unques- 
tionably have made such terms either with the rebels or with the 
invading Norwegians as would at once have seated him on the 
lhrone;"or afterwards, if he had so chosen, bemg of the roya^ 
blood and the head if an army flushed with victory, having 
twice in one day by performing prodigies of valor saved Scot- 
W and Scotland's king, he could imr.ediate y ^^^e demanded 
the crown of Duncan. He does nothing of the kind He be- 
haves like a patriot and a Christian; he is loyal to his k^g 

In the last part of this scene, the secret treason of the thane 
of Cawdor is mentioned, and Duncan awards his title to Mac- 
beth -^ 

No more that thane of Cawdor shall deceive 

Our bosom interest: go, pronounce his present death, 

And with his former title greet Macbeth. 

-. In the third scene the weird sisters reappear. They tell of 
their petty spite and supernatural power. Immediately alter 
this, Macbeth and Banquo, on their way towards the king at 
Forces come face to face with them. The sharp-sighted Banquo 
sees them first. Macbeth, we presume, is m poetic reverie. 
On the following dozen or fifteen lines much depends — 

Enter Macbeth and Banquo. 

Macbeth So foul and fair a day I have not seen. 

Banquo.' IIow far is't call'd to Forres? What are these 
Ro wither 'd and so wild in their attire, 
That look not like the inhabitants o the earth. 
And yet are on 't? — Live you? or are you aught 
That man may question? You seem to understand me, 



248 TUB TRUE MACBETH. 



By each at once her choppy finger laying 
Upon her skinru^ hps : you should be women, 
And yet your beards forbid nie to interpret 
That you are so. 

Macbeth. Speak, if you can: what are you. 

Fir.^t Witch. All liail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis! 

Second Witch. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor! 

Third Witch. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter! 

Here are two predictions: he is already thane of Glamis; he 
shall be thane of Cawdor; and he shall be king.*^- We should 
naturally suppose that joy would have filled his heart and shone 
in his eyes. His dream of sovereignty for himself and wif ■ 
is to come true. At least, if he had been wickedly am.bitio'.;.; 
and unprincipled, a smile would have lit up his countenance' 
for an instant. Instead, his heart palpitates; his hair stands on 
end; fear, terror overspreads his visage. The quifck-eyed 
Banquo perceives it and wonderingly asks — 

Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear 
Things that do sound so fair? 

We may well ask the same question — Why did he? 

The answer is obvious if our conception of the original char- 
acter of Macbeth is correct, not otherwise. Macbeth has a 
right to be king; wishes it at least for his wife's sake; but thus 
far he has been able to see no short, sure way except by mur- 
dering Duncan. From such a foul, cruel, damnable step, "to 
wade through slaughter to a throne''; from that vision of 
fiendish assassination perpetrated by his own sword, or b}^ the 
''keen knife" in his wife's "little hand";* from that bloody 
spectacle which the witches have conjured up again, his soul, 
not yet hardened, recoils with horror. He tells us so. In 
the latter part of this same scene, all alone, thinking audibly, 
he speaks of yielding for a few seconds to the contemplation of 
the fearful deed; but he instantly shrinks from it dazed with 
unspeakable dread, blaming himself for entertaining even for 
a moment the accursed thought — 

Why do I yield to that suggestion 

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair 

And make my seated heart knock at mj^ ribs, 

Against the use of nature? Present fears 

Are less than horrible imaginings: 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, 

Shakes so my single state of man that function 

Is smother 'd in surmise, and nothing is 

But what is not. 

* That my keen knife see not the wound it makes. . . . Act I, sc. v. 

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. . . . Act V, sc. i. 



TBE TRUE MACBETH. 240 

In what other way can we account for this singular manifesta- 
tion of extreme fright and loathing? 

Banquo challenges the witches to speak to him. They tell 
him he shall be the father of kings, though not be king himself. 
They vanish. 

Without delay comes a surprising fulfilment of one of the 
witches' predictions. It is introduced with rhetorical skill, so 
as to make a fine climax. Messengers from the king arrive. 

Enter Ross and Angus. 

Ross. The king hath happily received, Macbeth, 
The news of thy success; and when he reads 
Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight, 
His wonders and his praises do contend 
Which should be thine or his. 

The last six words, " Which should be thine or his, '' have been 
a standing puzzle. '^Commentators," remarks Hudson, "have 
tugged mighty hard to wring a coherent and intelligible meaning 
out of the old reading, and I have tugged mighty hard to under- 
stand their explanations; but all the hard tugging has been 
in vain. " Our interpretation, first published in a magazine 
twenty-two years ago,* is as follows: Ross and Angus appear 
to think the magnanimous Duncan contemplates abdicating 
in favor of his heroic cousin. "Which thing — be it wealth, 
power, the forfeited thanedom, the throne itself — shall the 
king retain? Which thing shall he give to Macbeth?" The 
idea of so serious a step as abdication might w^ell make him 
pause in silence. Ross adds — 

Silenced with that, 
In viewing o 'er the rest o ' the selfsame day, 
He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks. 
Nothing afeared of what thyself didst make, 
Strange images of Death. 

Angus speaks — 

We are sent 
To give thee from our royal master thanks; 
Only to herald thee into his sight, 
Not pay thee. 

Ross chimes in with the significant words — 

And for an earnest of a greater honor, 
He bade me from liim call thee thane of Cawdor: 
In which addition, hail, most worthy thane! 
For it is thine. 

* Education, May, 1887. 



^50 THE TllUE MACBETH. 

"All earnest of a greater honor''! Macbeth must have mused — 
What can that "greater honor" be, what but the crown itself? 
Here it is interesting to note an odd blunder. When the 
weird sisters hailed Macbeth thane of Glamis, thane of Cawdor 
and future king, he replied — ' 

the thane of Cawdor lives, 
A prosperous gentleman; 

This is said to the witches. But Sir Henry Irvjng, copying 
Dr. Samuel Johnson's mistake, pronounced this statement oi 
Macbeth's a proof of his hypocrisy! "Cawdor," he said, "had 
been conquered in battle fighting against his king and country, 
and by the very man who spoke of him as prosperous. " Pro- 
fessor Henry Morley well says, "It not only does not appear 
that Cawdor was taken prisoner in the battle, but Shakespeare 
is careful to show that he was not in the battle. " 

To resume: In view of the prophecies and their partial ful- 
filment, what is the conclusion at which Macbeth arrives? 
It is a righteous one ; namely, that he will take no steps to get 
the crown ; he will simply remain passive — 

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me 
Without my stir. . . . Act I, sc. iii. 

Note his attitude : he is resolved to wait patiently. Herein 
the dramatist substantially agrees with the historian, who 
says, "Macbeth thought with himself that he must tarry a 
time which should advance him thereto [i.e., to the throne] 
by the Divine Providence, as it had come to pass in his former 
preferment." Shakespeare has substituted the word chance 
for Divine Providence, perhaps to please King James bv making 
Macbeth less religious than Banquo. He concludes his solilo- 
quy with 

Come what come may, 
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day, 

evidently meaning, "No matter what happens, I merely bide 
the time ; all things come to him who waits. " Yet in the teeth 
of all this, and in pointed opposition to his own hypothesis of 
total depravity. Sir Henry queerly commented, "It is of the 
essence of evil natures that they cannot wait'\' 

In the next 'scene we have the king's effusive welcome of 
Macbeth, and virtual acknowledgment that he has fairly 
earned the crown. It is their first meeting since the battles — 

O worthiest cousin! 
The sin of my ingratitude even now 
Was heavy on me. . . . Act I, sc. iv. 



TUB TRUE MACBETH. 251 

Whit inoratitudc? This: At the most imminent peril and by 
almost su^e^^l^^^^^ valor Macbeth has twice saved Scotland, 
Si nsTeward has been the petty title of thane of C.wc^o. 
But if he has done only his duty, why this gush? The /act 
1^ Macbeth's modest self-abnegation and V^'^^'fJ^^^Z 
with as much luster as his splendid ^^f ^ery and so Duncan 
as if ashamed of himself, as well he might be, adds with apparent 

sincerity — r x. c 

Thou art so far before 

More is thy due than more than all can pay. . • • Actl,sc.iv. 

"More is thy due than more than all can pay"! H this means 
anything, it^means that all Duncan's Vf^^^^^f.^^^^^^^^^ 
crown, would be inadequate compensation. Oui patriot ^^ar 
rior's answer is neat; we believe it sincere — 

The service and the loyalty I owe, 
In doing it, pays itself. ... Act I, sc. iv. 

Instantlv the king rejoins to the effect that in granting the 

hfnesh^^^ of Cawd^or hi has only made a begmmng and a wy 

small beginning, like the first steps m planting a seed or tree. 

Welcome hither : 
I have begun to plant thee and will labor 
To make thee full of growmg. 

There is one way and only one in which Duncan can fulfil this 
promise; vTz., by securing the throne to Macbeth and Lady 

^But'^within a minute Duncan dashes all such hopes to the 
.round Listen to him as he cuts off the possibihty of keeping 
his word and doing justice to Macbeth — 

Sons, kinsmen, thanes, 
And you whose places are the nearest, know 
We will establish our estate upon 
Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter 
The Prince of Cumberland. 

To name one Prince of Cumberland in Scotland then was like 
namirone Prince of Wales in England now. It dc-sifinated 
hfm Ts'the next successor of the reigning monarch fcir l;cnry 
a ln.itted that Duncan had no right to do th,s It wa,s a !ngh- 
h.n e 1 usuroation. The crown belonged m the other fsmily 
WeUmigh Macbeth fc enraged, in spite of settled usage and 



252 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

of justice and fairness and the kinp;'s implied promise, the old 
Scottish rule of alternation is again to be trampled on. Be- 
sides, up to this hour, only Duncan has stood between him and 
his rights; now there are two, Duncan and the boy IMalcolm. 
For a moment he is willing to strike down in death the much- 
promising, naught-performing usurper; yet even in the midst 
of his intense wrath he instinctively again recoils from the 
hideous spectacle. He whispers — 

The Prince of Cumberland ! that is a step '^ 
On which I must fall down, or else o'orieap, 
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires! 
Let not light see my black and deep desires: 
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be 
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see! 

The king tells him he is coming immediately to visit him 
at Inverness. Now for the first time, as we incline to think, 
Macbeth plays the hypocrite; but it is only for a moment, his 
passion soon cools. To Duncan's rather unceremonious order — 

From hence to Inverness 
And bind us further to you, 

he politely replies — 

The rest is labor, which is not used for you. 
I'll be myself tlie harbinger and make joyful 
The hearing of my wife with your approach: 
So humbly take my leave. 

Meanwhile, as appears in the next scene, Lady IMacbeth has 
received from her husband a letter in which he tells of the 
witches' two predictions, and the instant fulfilment of one. 
His care seems all for her, and the letter closes affectionately — 

This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of 
greatness, that thou mightest not lose the dues of rejoicing by being 
ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart, and 
farewell. 

His wife's comments on this are of weighty significance; but 
they were wholly ignored by Sir Henry. She is not a dreamer 
like her husband; she is a business man. She and she alone 
has had abundant opportunity to learn all his strength and 
weakness. Recall now what Holinshed relates — 

Macbeth began to take counsel how he might usurp the kingdom 
by force, having a just quarrel so to do (as he took the matter), for 
that Duncan did what in him lay to defraud him of all manner of 
title and claim . . . unto the crown. . . . The wortls of the (hree 
weird sisters also . . . greatly encouraged him hereunto ; but specially 
his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was very 
ambitious, brenning [burning] in unquenchable desire to bear the name 
of Queen. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 253 

Do not forf!;et that she knows whereof she speaks, that she 
is all alone, thinking aloud, and has no motive to misstate : 

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be 

What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature; 

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 

To catch the nearest way. . . . Act I, sc. v. 

Too kind to kill the king! — that is her deUberate opinion, 
riainly he ought to have more wickedness in his make-up. 

Thou wouldst be great; 
Art not without ambition, but without 
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly, 
That wouldst thou holily. 

This word 'holily' is strong here, as it is everywhere. It im- 
plies extraordinary scrupulousness as in the sight of the All- 
seeing. 

wouldst not play false, 
And yet wouldst wrongly win. 

Her judgment is sound; there is no glamour of love or poetry 
here; he is devout and conscientious, but not quite perfect. 
No man is. He is willing to win by indirection; desires the 
end, rejects the means. He himself cannot kill Duncan; but 
if some one else should, he w^ould not wish the deed undone. 
He is afraid to do wrong, it seems. She feels herself more dar- 
ing- 
Hie thee hither, 
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
And chastise with the valor of my tongue 
All that impedes thee from the golden round. 

Here a messenger enters abruptly; tells her the king is com- 
ing to Inverness this very evening, and that Macbeth is also 
coming. Instantly her purpose is formed: without the aid of 
her husband, with her own knife she will do the work. She 
is master at home. She invokes the cooperation of evil spirits 
supposed to help assassins. Hear her — 

The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Und^r my battlements. — Come, you spirits 
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full 
Of direct cruelty! make thick my blood; 
Stop up the access and passage to remorse, 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my fell purpose, . , . 



254 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

Come to my woman's breasts, 
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, 
Wherever in your sigtitless substances 
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, 
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell. 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry 'Hold, hold!' 

Note the words "my keen knife"! She will do the deed 
with her own hand, her husband not being wicked'enough! 

Hardly have these words escaped her lips when her husband 
enters unannounced. This is their first meeting since those 
desperate hand to hand conflicts in which he incurred such 
dangers, displayed such prowess, and almost single-handed 
turned the tide of victory. We should have expected from 
her some passionate expression of love, and of heartfelt thank- 
fulness to God for his almost miraculous preservation from 
wounds and death; but there is nothing of this. We like to 
imagine that she regards him tenderly as a wife should such 
a husband ; but there is no evidence of her affection either here 
or anywhere. He has pet names and terms of endearment 
for her; she none for him. She is his tempter and destroyer; 
but he never lisps a syllable against her; he is too chivalrous 
for that. She feals that ''hell is murky," * but she scruples not 
to imperil his soul. 

It is not pleasant to say all this of the lady; but burning 
ambition and unselfish love and pious gratitude and loyalty 
to conscience cannot dwell together in the same bosom. Her 
eloquent words are solely to stimulate his efforts to get the 
crown. We quote the interview — 

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor! 
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter! 
Thy letters have transported me beyond 
This ignorant present, and I feel now 
The future in the instant. 

He replies — 

My dearest love, 
Duncan comes here to-night. 

She asks — 

And when goes hence? 

He answers — 

To-morrow, as he purposes. 



* Act V, sc. i, 34. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 255 

The added clause, "as he purposes," has often been cited as 
a dark hhit to her that Duncan's purpose of departure is to be 
defeated by Macbeth. It is more charitable to regard it as the 
effect of an habitual care on his part to speak the exact truth. 
He had learned of Duncan's intention, which any one of a 
dozen reasons might cause to be changed; and he instinctively 
limits his statement. He no more intimates here that the 
king is to die than he intimates to Lennox in II, iii, 34,* that 
the king is dead. Why seek an evil motive when a good one 
will answer just as well? 
She instantly responds — 

O, never 
Shall sun that morrow see! 

This is no dark hint, but an outspoken avowal of her murder- 
ous design. It is the first time either has broached this enter- 
prise to the other in the play. Probably, as she says this, she 
observes in his face an expression of perplexity, fear, horror,, 
such as Banquo had marked when the prophecy of the third 
witch conjured up to Macbeth's overwrought imagination a 
horrifying picture of the king weltering in gore under an assas- 
sin's knife. 

An honest man's face is naturally the mirror of his soul. 
Over and over in this play it is so with Macbeth's. It is hard 
for him to control his features. They will reveal his feelings. 
His eyes are windows. You may recall the description of Hir 
Philip Sidney in lines attributed to Spenser — 

A sweet attractive kind of grace, 
A full assurance given by looks, 
Continual comfort in a face, 
The lineaments of gospel books : 
I trow that countenance cannot lie 
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye. 

What says Lady Macbeth as she watches in her husband's eyes 
the effect of her fierce, declared, unmistakable determination 
that the king shall be butchered to-night? 

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men 
May read strange matters. 

See how she urges him to play the hypocrite with his counte- 
nance — 

To beguile the time, 
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, 
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under 't. 



* Lennox. Goes the king hence to-day? 

Macbeth. He does; he did appoint so. 



256 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

But his visage still betrays dread, loathino;, anxiety, irresolution. 
Quick as thought, agreeably to her first plan, she at once per- 
emptorily decides that the whole management of the bloody 
business shall be left to her — 

He that's coming 
Must be provided for : and you shall put 
This night's great business into my dispatch; 
Which shall to all our nights and days to come 
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom. 

To this second announcement of her fell resolve that the king 
shall die this night, and to this resumption and avowal of her 
original purpose of killing him with her own hands, he is non- 
committal. It is of no use to argue with her in her present 
mood. He inclines to postpone the subject as he has probably 
done many times in years past. He merely says — 
We will speak further. 

She ends the interview by insisting again that he shall play 
the hypocrite with his face. If he will only look innocent and 
fearless, it is all she asks; she will do the rest — 

Only look up clear; 
To alter favor ever is to fear : 
Leave all the rest to me. . . . Act I, sc. v. 

Early that evening Duncan and his suite arrive at Inverness 
Castle. Lady Macbeth comes to the gate to welcome them. 
Macbeth does not come. His absence seems to excite surprise, 
for the king asks Lady Macbeth, "Where's the thane of Caw- 
dor?" To this she gives no answer, a suspicious circumstance. 
Where was the thane of Cawdor? Is it not a reasonable con- 
jecture that this man, who wears his heart on his sleeve, can- 
not trust himself to look into the eyes of the old king who is 
to be murdered in his bed to-night by him or by Lady Macbeth? 

A supper has been hastily prepared. The king and his peers 
are seated at the table in the great hall. Macbeth has come 
in for a little while, but has soon left his noble guests and 
retired to his own room. His absence excites inquiry on the 
part of the king. No explanation of it is given. All alone 
thinking aloud, with no motive to be other than honest and 
truthful, Macbeth enumerates some half dozen objections to 
the murder; namely, though he has little fear of punishment 
after death and might run the risk of that, yet as a rule vengeance 
is executed upon assassins in this life ; there are ties of kinship 
he ought not to break, bonds of loyalty, laws of hosi)itality; 
Duncan's virtues, too, "will plead like angels trumpet-tongued 



THE TRUE Macbeth. 257 

against the deep damnation of his taking-off, " for so he char- 
acterizes it; and, finally, there is no spur to the crime but 

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself 
And falls. . . . Act I, sc. vii. 

At this stage it is pertinent to note another careless misinter- 
]:)retation. It was brought in by Sir Henry Irving to illustrate 
Macbeth 's poetic imaginings, so realistic, according to Sir Henry, 
as to awaken a queer sort of pity — pity that comes and goes 
like a blush, bathes the cheek with tears, yet in a moment gives 
place to utter heartlessness. Quoting from the soliloquy the 
following lines — 

And pity, like a naked new-born babe, 
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind. 

Sir Henry made this singular comment — 

I can see the tears trickling down Macbeth 's cheeks, as, in the image 
of pity for Duncan, he pictures the newborn babe tossed about by the 
tempestuous wind. 

Here Sir Henry missed the point of resemblance, tenderness. 
He appeared to think that in some mysterious manner the 
newborn babe gets mounted astride a blast, is unhorsed, and is 
then kicked to and fro by the tempestuous steed! But it is 
not a babe's impossible ecjuestrianism that makes every eye, 
save Macbeth's, swim with tears. It is pity, sweetly sym- 
pathetic and delicately sensitive. A like simile in Measure for 
Measure (Act II, sc. ii) emphasizes the tenderness of mercy. 

Macbeth's soliloquy is abruptly broken off by the entrance 
of his wife. "How now! what news?" he sharply asks. She 
answers as sharply — 

He has almost supped: why have you left the chamber? 

Well, why had he? Probably for the same reason that he did 
not go to meet the king at the gate: he could not easily and 
skilfully act the hypocrite, could not trust his telltale face, 
could not coolly confront the man he or his wife was to stab to 
the heart in an hour or two. 

Hath he asked for me? 

Assuming that he must have heard of the king's natural, 
perhaps repeated inquiry as to his strange departure from 



258 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

the dining hall, she impatiently replies, "Know you not he 
has?" Macbeth, seemingly nettled, answers with unwonted 
decision — 

We will proceed no further in this business: 

She is angry. Are all her hopes to be frustrated? She sneer- 
ingly chides him for stupor, vacillation, sickly irresolution; 
feeble love for her; fear, unbecoming in a man who aspires to 
a crown. You will notice that she is continually-harping on 
courage or the lack of courage. She fears neither God nor 
man. She would run all risks, defy all dangers. Reckless 
daring is with her the highest of virtues; fear to do a thnig, 
right or wrong, the basest of faults. Duty is nowhere. At 
last she charges him with cowardice. This stings him. ''Take 
any shape but that"! 

Ladif Macbeth. Wouldst thou have that 

Which thou esteem 'st the ornament of life, 
And live a coward in thine own esteem, 
Letting ' I dare not' wait upon ' I would'? 

His answer is noble, and it reveals his ideal, manhness — 

I dare do all that may become a man; 
Who dares do more is none. 

It is well in reading this play to remember that, as Brutus's 
ideal, ever manifest in all that is said to or by him in Julius 
Coesar, is false honor; so Macbeth's, many times alluded to by 
him or her in this play, is true manliness.. But hers is sheer 
audacity. He had meant, Who dares do more than becomes a 
man is a fiend. In a flash she twists his logic, suggesting another 

antithesis — 

What beast was't then 
That made you break this enterprise to me? 
When you durst do it, then you v/cre a man; 
And, to be more than what you were, you would 
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both: 
The3^ have made themselves, and that their fitness now 
Does unmake you. 

Mainly on this particular passage, including the five or six 
lines that follow. Sir Henry based his theory of Macbeth's diab- 
olism ab initio. "Here," he said, "it is definitely stated that 
before the present time, the subject of the murder had been 
broached, and that it was Macbeth who had broached it." 
One answer to this, as already suggested, is that doubtless the 
problem of getting possession of the throne had been broached 



THE TRUE MAC BE TIL 259 

many times by one or other of them during the seven years oi 
Dun.can's swav. 

But there is another answer. All this utterance ot Lady 
Macbeth is the language of desperate recklessness and grossest 
exaggeration. Listen — 

I have given suck, and know 
How tender 't is to love the babe that milks me : 
I would, while it was smiling in my face. 
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums 
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you 
Have done to this. 

It is safe to say she would have done nothing of the sort. So 
far from killing her babe at her breast in fulfilment of a wicked 
oath, we shall see that she cannot even kill her supposed enemy, 
the king, in pursuance of what she deems a good resolution. 
''Had I so sworn 'M Very likely this is hyperbole suggested by, 
''My dear, I swear you shall yet w^ear a crown," or words to 
that effect. In the play, as we have seen, she, not he, has sug- 
gested the murder. 

The twelve or fourteen lines of the speech just quoted are a 
masterpiece of brilliant sophistry. The plausible implication 
that he first broke the enterprise to her; that it was not fiendish 
nor beastly but manly to suggest it ; that he would be still more 
a man if he carried it into execution; that his postponements 
on the ground that time and place were unfavorable amounted 
to a promise of performance when circumstances should be 
propitious ; that this promise or vague assurance was equivalent 
to a solemn oath; that it was a pious act to take such oath; 
that it was not only inconsistent but weak and wicked to break 
it — these sophisms are so compactly interwrought, urged so 
swiftly and with such passionate vehemence, that her husband 
has neither opportunity to interrupt nor power to controvert. 
He can only interject — 

If we should fail? 

She scouts the idea that "we should fail." If he will rouse 
his courage to the utmost, "we'll not fail." She tells how she 
will assist, and how easy it will be. Duncan will sleep early 
and soundly after his hard journey; she will meanwhile get the 
two chamberlains, body servants of the king, dead drunk; 
then he and she jointly can achieve the "great quell." She 
never calls it "murder"; to her it seems something heroic — 
"this night's great business"! Then they'll divert suspicion 
from themselves to the drunken officers of the king's bedcham- 



260 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

ber. See with what care she has planned the whole to avert 
all chance of failure — 

Macbeth. If we should fail? 

Lady Macbeth. We fail? 

But screw your courage to the sticking place, 
And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep, 
Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey 
Soundly invite him, his two chamberlains 
Will I with wine and wassail so convince 
That memory, the warder of the brain, *" 

Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason 
A limbeck only : when in swinish sleep 
Their drenched natures lie as in a death. 
What cannot you and I perform upon 
The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon 
His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt 
Of our great quell? 

Macbeth is fairly carried away by this exhibition of nerve, 
daring, energy, ingenuity, and indomitable will in the woman he 
loves, fit to be the mother of heroes and kings! He exclaims — 

Bring forth men-children only; 
For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
Nothing but males. 

It is the suggestion of joint, not separate, action that seems 
to be decisive. With her efficient cooperation in shedding 
the king's blood and making scapegoats of the intoxicated 
grooms, victory is in sight. She will certainly do it alone, 
if he refuses to share in the exploit. Better combine their 
forces than leave her to try it unaided. Yes, he will help her 
carry out the "enterprise" as she terms it. He catches at her 
suggestion of putting something (she avoids the word blood) 
on the two chamberlains to make them appear guilty. ''Will 
it not, " he asks — 

Will it not be receiv'd, 
When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two 
Of his own chamber and us'd their very daggers. 
That they have done 't? 

Her answer shows her perfect confidence that no one will dare 
reject their theory; especially since they will make a great out- 
cry when the deed is discovered — 

Who dares receive it other. 
As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar 
Upon his death? 

He resolves; the die is cast. He likes it not, but it must be. 
It is "terrible," but it is a "feat." He will brace up all his 
bodily powers to accomplish it. He will try to control his face, 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 261 

dissemble his horrid purpose, and keep up a fair exterior; let 
her too play the hypocrite — 

I am settled, and bend up 
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. 
Away, and mock the time with fairest show : 
False face must hide what the false heart doth know. 

It is past midnif2;ht. As a signal to him, for she still seems 
to take direction of everything, she is to strike a bell, probably 
to notify him that all is in readiness, the coast is clear, the 
chamberlains are stupefied with the liquor which she has drugged 
and given them, their daggers have been stealthily removed 
by her from their belts and placed where her husband must see 
them as he enters, and the king is snoring in profound sleep. 

While waiting for the signal, he suddenly sees in the air, 
within reach, what seems to be a dagger beckoning him towards 
Duncan's room. He tries to clutch it, but it eludes his grasp. 
Blood-drops start from the blade and handle! — Act II, sc. i. 
Of course it is subjective; and, surely, a hardened assassin, 
"hypocrite, traitor, villain, cold-blooded, selfish, remorseless, 
with a true villain's nerve and callousness, a resolution as grimly 
fixed as steel and a heart as cold as ice, and the physical heroism 
of those born to kill" — [we are quoting Sir Henry's exact 
words] — such a fellow would never see 

A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain. 

It is now past two o'clock. He hears her signal bell — 

I go, and it is done ; the bell invites me. — 

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell 

That summons thee to heaven — or to hell. 

While he is gone on his deadly errand, she is listening. She 
has done her part and even more than she had promised: she 
has given the two valets what the policemen call "knock-out 
drops. " She is herself stimulated, if not intoxicated * — 

Lady Macbeth. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold, 
What hath quench 'd them hath given ine fire. — Hark! Peace! 
It was the owl that shriek 'd, the fatal bellman, 
Which gives the stern 'st good-night. He is about it; 
The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms 

Do mock their charge with snores; I have drugg'd their possets, 
That death and nature do contend about them, 
Whether they live or die. 

* " Our sex is obliged to Shakespeare for this passage. He seems to think 
that a woman could not be rendered completely wicked without some degree 
of intoxication." — Mrs. Elizabeth Griffiths, in The Morality of Shakespenre's 
Dramas Illustrated, 1775. — Furness and some others deny the intoxication. 



262 TUE TRUE MACBETH. 



Macbeth. [Within.'] Who's there? what, ho! 

Lady Macbeth. Alack, I am afraid they have av/ak'd. 
And 't is not done. The atteni^^t and not the deed 
Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready; 
He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done 't. . . . Act II, sc. ii. 

We love to dwell on this last statement : it is a wonderful touch — 

Had he not resembled 
My father as he slept, I had done 't. ,- 

She had gone to the king's room. Why? Perhaps to make 
sure that all was favorable ; more likely, because she feared that 
some ''compunctious visitings" or "the milk of human kind- 
ness" in her husband's nature might deter him even now. At 
any rate she resumes her original purpose, softly draws the 
chc/" berlains' daggers, advances to the bedside to stab; but 
in the dim light the face of the aged sleeper looks so hke her 
father's that she cannot do it. She is not quite "unsexed" 
after all. She quickly lays the daggers in readiness and rushes 
back to her room. 

In a few minutes her husband returns. In his excitement 
he has forgotten to mark the two chamberlains with blood ; his 
right hand is all gory; in his left are the two dripping daggers 
which, like a fool, he has brought from the chamber of horrors; 
and he still wears his day dress, showing that he has not been 
in bed. Evidently he has foreseen nothing, made no prepara- 
tion, taken no precautions, but left all to her. He does not 
even know who lies in the second chamber. 

We call careful attention to the dialogue that follows. See 
if his conduct and speech are those of a consummate rascal; 
a cool, calculating hypocrite; a mocking Mephistopheles, who, 
as Sir Henry imagined, tries to "lead his wife to beheve that 
she is leading him on," and "plays with his conscience as a 
cat does with a mouse. " 

Enter Macbeth. 

Macbeth. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise? 

Ladif Macbeth. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. 
Did not vou speak? 

Macbeth. When? 

Ladii Macbeth. Now. 

Macbeth. ■ As I descended? 

Lady Macbeth. Ay. 

Macbeth. Hark! 
Who lies i' the second chamber? 

Lady Macbeth. Donalbain. 

Macbeth. This is a sorry sight. [Looking ot his hands. 

Lady Macbeth. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 263 

Macbeth. There's one did laugh in 's sleep and one cried " Murder!"^ 
That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them. 
But thsy dill say th2ir prayers, and address d tiiem 

Again to sleep. , , ', i ^ ,i 

Lad>/ Macbeth. There are two lodg d together. 

MaMh. One cried "God bless us!" and "Amen" the other, 
As they had ssen me with these hangman s hands. 
Listening their fear. I could not say " Amen, 
When thev did say " God bless us!" 

Lad>f Macbeth. Consider it not so deeply. ^ 

Macbeth. But wherefore could not I pronounce Amen C 
I had most need of blessing, and "Amen" 
Stvick in my throat. 

Evidently he is ac-ustomcd to join in prayer, not with his Hps 
oily but with his heart. Call him fool if you will, but do not 
call him a hypocrite when he is so choked with emotion — 

I had most need of blessing, and " Amen'! 
Stuck\in my throat. 

She with prophetic insight replies — 

These deeds must not be thought 
After these ways; so, it will make us mad. 

He continues — 

Mcthought I heard a voice cry " Sleep no more! 
Macbeth does murder sleep" — the innocent sleep, 
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd slcave of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor s bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
. Chieinourisher in life's feast, — • 

Lady Macbeth. What do you mean? 

Macbeth. Still it cried " Sleep no more!" to all the house. 
"Glamis hath murder 'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor 
Shall sleep no more ; Macbeth shall sleep no more. 

Lady Macbeth. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane, 
You do unbend your noble strength, to thmk 
So brainsickly of things. Go get some water. 
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. 

At this moment she catches a glimpse of the daggers in his 
left hand — 

Why did you bring these daggers from the place? 

They must lie there : go carry them, and smear 

The sleepy grooms with blood. 

Macbeth. I'll go no more: 

I am afraid to think what I have done ; 

Look on 't again I dare not. ^ ^ . , 

Lady Macbeth. Infinn of purpose f 

Give me the daggers: the sleepmg and the dead 

Are but as pictures; 't is the eye of chi dhood 

That fears a painted devil. It he do bleed 

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal; 

For it must seem their guilt. 



264 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

Coleridge tells us there are no puns in Macbeth. We are sorry 
to say there are two or three. Here is one — "gild/' "guilt. " 
But there is a reason for it : if nothing else will restore common 
sense to her husband, perhaps a pun will do it. Besides, it 
is noticeable that, womanlike, she avoids repulsive words, 
substituting euphemisms. . ■ 

She snatches the daggers, rushes to the death chamber, 
scoops up the blood with her hands, pours it on the chamber- 
lains, lays the red daggers on their pillows, and hurpies back. 

While she was gone, there was a great knocking at the gate. 
Macbeth hears it and ejaculates — 

Whence is that knocking? 
How is 't with me, when every noise appals me? 
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes. 
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather 
The multitudinous seas incarnadine. 
Making the green one red. 

Lady Macbeth returning from the bloody room seems to have 
overheard the last four or five lines. Reentering she expresses 
her impatience — 

My hands are of your color; but I shame 
To wear a heart so white. [Knocking v)ithin.'\ I hear a knocking 
At the south entry: retire we to our chamber. 
A little water clears us of this deed: 
How easy is it, then! Your constancy 

Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within. '\ Hark ! more knocking. 
Get on your nightgown,, lest occasion call us 
And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 
So poorly in your thoughts. 

Macbeth. To know my deed, 't were best not know myself. 
[Knocking within.'] 
Wake Duncan with thy knocking I I would thou couldst ! 

What shall we say to all this? Must we not conclude that 
a good man feels he has gone fearfully, fatally wrong; and his 
agony of remorse is almost beyond the power of words to 
express? Yet Sir Henry declared him remorseless! 

The next business of course must be to cover up the crime. 

It was Macduff that was knocking so hard at the gate. He 
had be'en commanded to call the king very early. He passes to 
the king's chamber, and on discovering what had been done 
he rouses all the sleepers with his frantic outcries. Lady 
Macbeth rushes in with the rest, and demands — 

What's the business, 
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak! 

Macduff. O gentle lady, 

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak : 
The repetition, in a woman's ear, 
Would murder as it fell. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 265 



Enter Banquo. 

O Banquo, Banquo! 
Our royal master's murdered. 

Lady Macbeth. Woe, alas! 

What, in our house? . . . Act II, sc. iii. 

Her "What, in our house?" sounds like regret not at the deed 
but at the place. Banquo's rejoinder, "Too cruel anywhere," 
savors of reproof. Meanwhile Macbeth with Lennox had 
sprung to the dead king's room; and, pretending to beheve, 
just as his wife had planned he should, that the tw^o grooms, 
whose hands and faces she had smeared with blood, and whose 
dirks she had laid unwiped on their pillow, were the murderers, 
he drew his sword and slew them both. Amid these throng- 
ing horrors, Lady Macbeth faints or pretends to faint. Mac- 
beth does not move to her assistance as others do. It looks 
as if he thought her shamming. 

The king's two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee for their 
lives. This puts on them suspicion of having caused the mur- 
der of their father. 

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are soon crowned; but they are 
unhappy. Very significant is her sigh — 

Nought's had, all's spent, 
Where our desire is got without content : 
'Tis safer to be that which we destroy 
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. . . . Act III, sc. ii. 

She chides him for thinking so much of Duncan and the cham- 
berlains — 

How now, my lord ! why do you keep alone. 

Of sorriest fancies your companions making. 

Using those thoughts which should indeed have died 

With them they think on? Things without all remedy 

Should be without regard: what's done is done. 

They have terrible dreams that render him desperate. He even 
envies their slain victims that now sleep so peacefully — 

Better be with the dead. 
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstacy. Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well; 
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, 
Can touch him further. 

But sorrow for the dead is blended with Jear of the living. 
He remembers the prophecy of the weird sisters and is afraid 
of Banquo. Macbeth has a son, and like every monarch he 



206 THE TRUE MAC BE Til. 

wishes his own posterity to sit on the throne. The witches 
pronounced Banquo the happier. Macbeth recalls the inci- 
dent — 

He chid the sisters, 
When first they put the name of kins upon me, 
And bade them speak to him; then prophet-hke 
They hailed him father to a hne of kings. 
Upon my head they phic'd a fruitless crown, 
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, 
Thence to be wrench 'd with an unlineal hand,,. 
No son of mine succeeding. . . . Act III, sc. i. 

This thought intensifies his remorse. In vain has he defiled 
his mind, bartered away his innocence, his happiness, his peace, 
and his soul's most precious treasure for the empty, tormenting 
circlet so soon to be worn in triumph by no friends of his — 

If 't be so, 
For Banquo 's issvie have I fil'd my mind; 
For them the gracious Duncan have I murder 'd; 
Put rancors in the vessel of my peace 
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel 
Given to the common enemy of man, 
To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings ! . . . 

Act III, sc. i. 

To prevent this he plots the murder of Banquo and his boy 
Fleance. At dusk accordingly Banquo is slain; but Fleance 
escapes, to become the ancestor of the Stuart kings. Within 
two hours, at a great feast in the banqueting hall of the palace, 
Banquo 's ghost confronts Macbeth, invisible to all but him, 
though shown on the stage in Shakespeare's theatre before 
Shakespeare's death.* The scene is one of the greatest in 
literature. Its immediate effect is decisive. Until this hour 
he may have intended to become an upright king. Now he 
professes utter selfishness as his rule of action — 

I will to-morrow, 
And betimes I will, to the weird sisters: 
More shall they speak, for now I am bent to know. 
By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good 
All causes shall give away : I am in blood 
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more. 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. . . . Act III, sc. iv. 

His downward career has been swift, crime begetting crime. 

Facilis descensus Averno; 
Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras. 
Hoc opus, hie labor est. 



* So seen at the Globe Theatre by Dr. Simon Forman, April 20, 1610, and 
described by him in his diary. 



THE TRUE MACBETH. 26T 

Early next mornin- he visits the weird sisters He hates 
them, they have made him wretched ; but he needs them a^id he 
believes them. They tantalize him; raise apparitions that lead 
him to fancy himself invincible; but they at length lift the ve 
of futurity and show him in vision eight kings crowned, all 
descendants of Banquo. Then they mock him with music and 
dancing, and vanish. He is almost frenzied. At that instant 
tidings come that Macduff, who had bluntly refused to attend 
the banquet, has fled to England. In revenge Macbeth plans 
and perpetrates the massacre of Macduff s household — 

Wife, children, servants, all 
That could be found. ... Act IV, sc. iii. 

As we have seen, for his first murder he could plead some ex- 
cuse, a claim of right; for the second, the slaughter of the two 
chamberlains, he could urge that it was done on impulse with- 
out premeditation; for the third, that of Banquo, he could say 
that he was Winded by parental love; but of the butchery of 
Lady Macduff and her httle ones there could be no palhation, 
no hope of possible advantage either to himself or to any one 
else It is wickedness for its own sake. He has adopted 
Satan's rule of action in Paradise Lost, the canon ot deviltry — 

Evil, be thou my good : by thee at least 
Divided empire with heaven's Kmg I hold. 

It is a fatal plunge; he can sink no deeper; he has touched 
bottom Even his love for his wife departs. She dies, and 
he is angry! What business has she to be dying now? -^ 

"While the thief is stealing, the hemp is growing _ Retri- 
bution at the head of an invading army from England is advan- 
cing with giant strides. , 

In the battle which follows, Macbeth, confident of the truth 
of the witch's prediction — 

None of woman born 
Shall harm Macbeth, 

believes his sword, like Arthur's Excalibur, irresistible. 

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh tx^ scorn 

Brandish 'd by man that's of a woman born. . . . Act V, sc. vu. 

Face to face with Macduff, whose family he has so cruelly 
and causelessly murdered, remorse for a mom ent paralyzes his 

* Macbeth. She s^iomW have died hereafter; a„+ v «o v 

There would have been a time for such a word. ... Act v, sc. v. 



268 THE TRUE MACBETH. 

arm, and he would not slay him. Is it a last flicker of expiring 
goodness, or a momentary revivification of a once glorious 
chivalry? . , , , 

Of all men else I have avoided thee : ^ 

But get thee back; my soul is too much charg d 
With blood of thine already. . . . Act V, sc. vm. 

Macduff replies — 

I have no words ; 
My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain 
Than terms can give thee out ! 

They fight; neither gains any advantage. After the fashion of 
the heroic ages, they pause for breath. Macbeth speaks — 

Thou losest labor. 

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air 

With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed : 

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; 

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield 

To one of woman born. 

Macduff responds,,;^ . 

Despair thy charm, 
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv'd 
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother's womb 
Untimely ripp'd! 

Macbeth's former ideal, manliness of soul based on genuine 
goodness, has given place to mere animal courage based on the 
witches' assurance of invulnerability. Even that fails him now, 
when told that Macduff was never born — 

Macbeth. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, 
For it hath cow'd my better part of man! 
And be these juggling fiends no more belie v'd, 
That palter with us in a double sense ; 
That keep the word of promise to our ear, 
And break it to our hope. — I'll not fight with thee. 

Macduff retorts — 

Then yield thee, coward. 
And Hve to be the show and gaze o' the time: 
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, 
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit, 
"Here may you see the tyrant. '. 

But the animal instinct for fight returns. Macbeth shouts — 

I will not yield, 
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, 
And to be baited with the rabble's curse. 
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, 
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born. 
Yet I will try the last. Before my body 
I throw mv warlike shield: lay on, Macduff, 
And damn'd be him that first cries " Hold, enough!!! 



THE TRUE MACBETH 269 

This spirit is not what Sir Henry called "the great, manly 
quality of heroism." It is less characteristic of man than of 
beast. Wolves have it; devils, they say, have it. For some 
time Macbeth has been growing more or less than man, a demon 
or a brute. He is still strong in intellect, still proud of heart; 
but of the angelic only the low ability to fight desperately and 
die fearlessly is left. 

The gist of the play, then, is the utter perdition of a great 
and gifted soul, through yielding to successive temptations, 
crime begettins; crime. 



&'■ 



Of all we loved and honored, nought 

Save power remains, 
A fallen angel's pride of thought 

Still strong in chains. 

All else is gone : from those great eyes 

The soul is fled. 
When faith is lost, and honor dies. 

The man is dead. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 067 704 8 



